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CV: A self-made man, Berlusconi worked as a cruise-ship crooner before becoming a property tycoon in Milan. By 1969 he had built and sold over 1,000 flats and launched a television channel, the beginning of his media empire. He also owns the football club AC Milan. He entered politics in 1994, and won the election, but lost to Romano Prodi two years later after his cabinet collapsed. He heads Forza Italia, which only fell short by a few thousand votes at the last election in April 2006. Now seems assured of another term as prime minister, but is disliked by his own allies and has health problems.

CV: A technocrat and a "non-politician", Prodi has run a coalition government that bridges the gap between Catholics and Communists. He studied at the Catholic University of Milan, the University of Bologna and the LSE, and was a professor of industrial organisation and policy in Bologna, Harvard and Stanford. He was appointed to the cabinet in 1978, and ran a state conglomerate called IRI. The current situation may remind him of his stint as prime minister in 1996, when the government collapsed after two years. Served a term as head of the European Commission.